Extenuating Circumstances
by artypendragon
Summary: If only Merlin was as deplorably inept at saving Arthur's life as he is at any and all of his servant duties. Five times Merlin sacrifices himself for Arthur, and one time Arthur tries to return the favour. (couldn't add a third genre to the ones below, but there's also angst with a happy ending)


I.

It's not the first time that someone has laced Arthur's drink with poison. Even if Arthur had been in his cups he'd have seen the serving boy shiftily tip a vial into a goblet before offering it to him. As it stands, he's merely a bit squiffy and doesn't have the proclivity for drama that his father did, so he is _about_ to make a show of accidentally knocking it over and then cornering the boy with his knights later, when Merlin decides to magnanimously interfere.

"My mother's special ale for you, Your Majesty," the boy says shakily. Not a very good assassin, Arthur thinks.

"Oh, that looks good," Merlin says interestedly, leaning over from his place at Arthur's right.

"Yes, but it's not for you," Arthur says, blocking Merlin's approach with his arm.

" _Why? I want it!_ " The mournfulness with which Merlin says this twigs Arthur that his servant is well gone on the mead Gwen had asked Merlin to bring for the two of them. Arthur would feel left out over this, but kings don't have time for such trifles as getting drunk and giggling over Sir Caradoc's shoddy attempts at wooing the newest maid in the castle.

"Because Guinevere's borrowed you for the night, and I only share with _my_ useless menservants," Arthur says, hoping that would be the end of it.

Of course it isn't.

"Arthur," Merlin moans, reaching for the goblet that Arthur's holding aloft and away from him. Arthur notices two things: the boy has evaporated (damn) and all the court is pretending it isn't being immensely entertained by the spectacle at the head of the table.

Three: Merlin is almost sprawled across him at this point.

"Piss off, Merlin," Arthur says, pleasant like a blizzard. Merlin, quick as a flash of lightning and not very drunk after all, lunges for the goblet and downs it before Arthur can say _there were better ways to save my life_.

"Delicious," Merlin pronounces, with a smack of his lips for good measure. Arthur springs up from his chair and is about to drag Merlin to Gaius's when Merlin says, "Hey, what's wrong?"

Arthur looks incredulously at him and then the goblet in his hand.

"Oh, you wouldn't have liked this anyway, it had too much gruyt in it," Merlin says, waving him off and smiling at Gwen, who now knows something's wrong. "You're not going to have a hissy fit over this, are you, you silly billy?"

As if Arthur cares about making a scene when his servant might choke to death in front of him! For the remainder of the night, Arthur cannot take his eyes off Merlin, who only rolls his own at Arthur whenever their gazes meet.

Regardless, the next morning finds Merlin conspicuously absent from Arthur's chambers. When Arthur barges into Gaius's rooms in his night shift, heart in his throat, sure that he's about to be faced with Merlin's corpse, he finds Merlin, alive but horrifyingly wan, vomiting into a bucket.

"H'lo," Merlin mutters when he raises his eyes to Arthur's half-naked self. "Couldn't bear to get dressed without me?"

"For fuck's sake, Merlin—" _you drank poisoned alcohol for me_ again _last night and now you're making jokes?_

"There was something in the bit of pork roast I ate," Merlin says. "Sorry, sire, I think you'll need to suffer George today."

"The _pork roast_?" Does Merlin really think Arthur that much of a fool? Arthur clenches his fists.

"Yes," Merlin says, and retches into the bucket again in a way that brooks no further discussion. Arthur wants to shake him, shout at him to not treat his own life so lightly.

Instead, he turns on his heel and strides back to his chambers, fuming silently.

* * *

II.

The Mercian envoy is too awfully incompetent to be anything but a clear indication to Arthur of the new Mercian king's opinion of him. More importantly, the envoy's manservant is a pestiferous prick and it _matters_ because Merlin will _not stop whinging about him._ Negotiations go about as well as expected.

The hunting excursion Arthur then proposes to ease the tension is an absolute disaster; the envoy is painfully unenthusiastic about the whole thing, all of Camelot's knights are exhausted not by physical exertion but sheer frustration at having to defer to such a buffoon, and Merlin's left to fetch all the arrows the envoy, Fendrel, aimlessly fires off into the woods.

"He likes to spare those pitiable bastards when he's in a particularly happy mood," Fendrel's servant announces to the party after Fendrel fires point-blank at a rabbit and misses.

Arthur hears a mumbled "Must always be pirouetting in the sunshine if you're still around, then" somewhere behind him and purses his lips. He'd forgotten how Merlin tended to mutter lovingly-crafted insults into his ear to break his poker face for kicks.

"Shall we stop?" Fendrel offers, finally picking up on the knights of Camelot's general feeling of ill-will towards him. "We could start making our way back post haste once we've sated our stomachs."

"With all the air you've massacred with your ghastly aim," Merlin whispers, kicking sullenly at the detritus on the forest floor. Arthur coughs for a good minute until Merlin presses a bottle of electuary into his hands.

The way back is harder to travel in the evening. Dense fog curls around the tree trunks and blinds all of them to the path leading back to Camelot. Fendrel's manservant looks around with a grimace.

"Never gone through such opaque fog before," he observes.

"Never shut the fuck up, either…" says a voice at Arthur's shoulder, making Arthur spur his horse faster ahead and break away from the party lest anyone recognise his wheezing for what it really is. The white haze swallows everyone up behind him, but he hears Merlin call out to him as he saunters off.

"Wait, Arthur, don't—"

His voice fades away.

Arthur is well and truly lost. Fuck. Regret over his good manners starts creeping over him, much like the fog, when—

"Fancy meeting you here."

Arthur jumps. "Merlin!" he exclaims, turning his horse around to see Merlin grinning on his own mount.

"Wasn't going to let you go off solo, of course," Merlin says breezily, clopping around them.

"It's your fault I had to do it anyway," Arthur says, folding his arms. "Look what you've done. A week in the stocks for you when we're home."

" _You wet blanket_ , I was only—" Merlin freezes, like a wild animal sensing danger. Arthur frowns at him.

"Do you foresee an end to that sentence?"

Merlin whips around to look oddly at him, and promptly shoves him off his steed.

Dull pain explodes across Arthur's shoulder blades as the unmistakable hiss of an arrow cutting through the air, right where Arthur had been, resounds in the silence… cut short by a sickening squelch and a hoarse cry—

" _Merlin_ ," Arthur screams, as Merlin falls to the ground next to him, arrow dislodging from his chest.

"What is it, prat," Merlin says through gritted teeth. Arthur drags him into his arms, nearly weeping as he tries to staunch the bleeding, shouting for his knights.

The fog dissipates much too quickly to have been a natural occurrence, and as the remainder of the party catches up to them and they race back to Camelot, Arthur doesn't even notice that Fendrel and his servant are missing.

"Merlin, I _forbid_ you from ever again saving my life," Arthur half-begs, after Gaius finishes with Merlin and makes the wise choice to leave them alone.

"I only pushed you off your horse because you were being an annoying git about the stocks," Merlin says, spread-eagled on his bed and smiling woozily, inches from sleep. "I like being alive more than I like you, don't worry."

Arthur might just suffocate from the blatant lie and the torrent of emotion it brings forth in him.

Or he might just stay by Merlin's side the whole night, waking up to (the best morning of his life) Merlin languidly stroking his hair and calling him the 'worst king to have ever kinged'.

* * *

III.

"I'm dying," Merlin groans, thrashing about listlessly on his cot. "My throat is on fire and my head is heavy and my body won't stop hurting, I'm going to die, Gaius, do something."

"It's just a cold, Merlin," Gaius says mildly, ladling syrup out from a cauldron into a small phial. He passes it to Arthur, who pinches Merlin's nose closed and pours the whole thing down his throat, ignoring the sputtering, coughing and other inconvenient things his servant is doing (being far too handsy with Arthur's chest and shoulders for one, which Arthur wouldn't normally mind, except Gaius is _right there_ with his eyebrow at the ready).

"It was scalding, you dollophead!"

" _It was scalding, you dollophead_ ," Arthur parrots, rising from his chair at Merlin's side. "Who asked you to fall sick and _stay_ sick? Be more like me."

"We're not all fit kings, ill one day and all right the next. Just you wait, I'll be dead by tomorrow and you'll be sorry," Merlin threatens.

"Can't wait, love funerals," Arthur says, moaning with sorrow (sounding nothing like it) at the end for effect. Merlin blushes, and oh, isn't _that_ interesting. Arthur smirks dirtily at him. Merlin responds with a rude gesture at him and turns away, hacking into his handkerchief.

"You wouldn't survive a day without me," Merlin croaks. The syrup clearly tastes _horrible_.

"I'm sure I could manage."

Merlin sneezes loudly. Somewhere a banshee recognises her kin's call. Arthur can't stop his snort as he walks towards the door.

"Rude," Merlin mutters, affectionate.

Arthur pauses at the entryway. Whirls around and walks back to Merlin, bending down, curling his fingers into the soft hair at the nape of Merlin's neck.

"Get better soon," he murmurs, thoroughly enjoying Merlin's helpless arch towards him. "I'd very much like to kiss you."

Merlin's eyes widen and he makes to sit up, so of course Arthur has to be an arse about it and adds, "Without your snot getting in the way and ruining all the fun," pushing Merlin back down and leaving him (them both) high and dry.

"Bastard," Merlin yells after him, sending Gaius into a fit of embarrassed coughing and making Arthur's day.

Over the next week, Merlin does _not_ get better. Merlin, in fact, gets progressively worse, as over half the city falls prey to this strange cold that refuses to subside in seven days. Twelve people die, even as Arthur presses everyone available into aiding the sick, himself included.

"Lung fever," Gaius announces, thankfully spared himself. Even Gwen is confined to her bed with this ailment, with no healthy chambermaid on hand to care for her. "They all have lung fever, a peculiarly virulent kind never seen before in Camelot. I almost didn't recognise the signs."

Arthur, having assumed said healthy chambermaid role for both Gwen and (faced with great resistance from) Merlin, squares his shoulders and asks, "Who needs help most urgently?"

Gaius sighs.

"Merlin has it much, much worse than others, though for the love of me I can't understand why—he did have just the common cold."

Poisoned alcohol. Uther's multiple threats of execution. Rogue dragon. Morgana. Morgana again. Poisoned alcohol again. Arrow to the chest. And this is what would take Merlin from him.

After ensuring Gwen's peaceful rest for the night, Arthur hastens back to Gaius's, fully intending to stay the night and ensure Merlin ingested his medicine some way or another, when he hears muffled voices from within.

"—glad you're awake."

Arthur smiles. Merlin hadn't awoken in two days and Arthur is very much looking forward to seeing Merlin's eyes light up in joy.

"Sorry, Gaius." Merlin's voice is but a rasp now; Arthur winces hearing it, not entering just yet.

"Just tell me before Arthur's here, my boy, quick—why does it affect you especially? Did you do something? Tell me you didn't use—!"

What?

"I only took on Arthur's."

" _Merlin!_ "

"I read the spell in the grimoire! I couldn't let there be even a tiny chance that he'd die, so—" Merlin breaks off, coughing hoarsely.

Arthur's heart sinks. Not only is Merlin a—but _yet_ again—

Head dizzy with half-thoughts, Arthur knocks on Gaius's door and steps in to see Merlin convincingly asleep.

Not dead, Arthur tells himself. Not dead.

* * *

IV.

A clement day in the seam between winter and spring finds Arthur in a lazy mood, taking his knights out under the pretence of patrol or training or _something_ , riding to the edge of the forest and giving them the day off to gambol in the sun.

Mordred's answering grin is the brightest and his cheer the loudest. Merlin scoffs quietly at Arthur's back.

Arthur isn't blind to Merlin's distaste for Mordred. He hides it so well that Arthur almost wears his knowledge of Merlin's minutest expressions and tones of voice like a badge of pride on his chest.

"You're extraordinary—" Merlin begins, and corrects himself. "Extraordinarily foolish. But you surprise me sometimes."

"Thank you," Arthur says, smiling at Merlin. Merlin's mouth quirks up sadly. His neck looks invitingly lovely. Arthur just sits down on the blanket Merlin's spread out on the grass and basks, watching his knights use their time off to drill anyway.

Merlin hesitantly sits down beside him, close enough for Arthur to reach out and grasp.

"Would you tell me what's on your mind?" he ventures after a while, when Arthur's eyes are shuttering of their own accord and the heat has singed its pleasant imprint on his back.

"Since when have you been so formal around me?" Arthur asks, reclining and using his arms crossed behind him as a pillow (he would much rather have Merlin's lap).

"Ever since I recovered from the lung fever months ago and you never made good your promise to kiss me," Merlin murmurs. Arthur exhales. "I'm sure you were as delirious as I was back then. It's all right. I understand."

Arthur's defied many an onslaught, but how is he to withstand _that_?

"Idiot," he says, making the hardest yet easiest decision of his life. "Get over here."

It's all Merlin's fault, Arthur decides, that the knights interrupt their self-training to wolf-whistle at the sight of them kissing sedulously against the sun. He tears himself away from Merlin's mouth, plush as roses. Merlin's cheeks are ridiculously vermilion, his lips glowing damask. Thick black lashes feather demurely across his skin because this, of all times, would be when he's too shy to look Arthur in the eye.

Arthur is so in love.

"I would give you the world," he whispers.

Merlin's eyes flit up to meet his.

"I'd rather have a day off, but first promise me you'll take care around Mordred," he answers, equally hushed.

"Anything you desire," Arthur says, shifting over to rest his head in Merlin's lap.

"Promise me," and Arthur dislikes the urgency in his tone. "I give my oath to you," he says, solemn.

Mordred is staring at them, something like dismay in his eyes. Arthur wonders just who of the two of them he is covetous of.

He finds out when Mordred hangs back to talk to Merlin, heads bowed close and tension in the air between them as Merlin, just as surly, dismisses Mordred with a few short words.

"Merlin's a sorcerer," Mordred spits, later in Arthur's room when Merlin is bound to only be a minute away with his dinner tray, striking Arthur's vow moot. "And so am I."

How strange and terrible jealousy can be.

Merlin kicks the door open, hefting the tray over to Arthur's table, and stops dead at the sight of Mordred's thunderous face.

"I told him," Mordred tells Merlin maliciously. "He won't love you now."

Merlin dithers not for a moment. "I would murder you where you stand if Arthur hadn't put his faith in you all those months ago," he snarls. Arthur wonders how Mordred could conjure such spleen in mild-mannered Merlin. Mordred whips back to Arthur, no longer a boy.

"Execute us both, now, or I swear on the Old Gods, _Arthur Pendragon_ , you will not live past tonight."

Not a sound escapes Arthur, speechless from Merlin's silent spell.

"Have your dinner first, though," Merlin says, gazing desolately at Arthur. "I'm so sorry. Today was the best day of my life."

His eyes flash golden.

Arthur falls into oblivion.

He wakes up the next morning, alone.

"Come back," he whispers to the air. "Wherever you are. Please."

He waits and waits; three days later he finds Merlin weeping piteously into Gaius's shoulder.

"I had to," he cries when Arthur draws him into his arms. "He would have killed you. He was destined to."

"Thank you, my sorcerer," is all Arthur utters in response.

* * *

V.

Morgana's sword comes away with blood; Merlin, his side burning, collapses to the ground. Arthur suddenly knows with absolute clarity that Merlin is going to die.

—

"Merlin? Merlin!"

Arthur slaps Merlin's face — he's the only one who allowed to take such liberties with it.

"Thanks, Arthur," Merlin mumbles dazedly. "I feel like you enjoy slapping me far too much for it to be healthy."

"You idiot!" Arthur exclaims, relief prominent in his voice. "Why would you jump in front of me like that?"

"Yes, what an unreasonable thing to do. Woe is me. I deserve to be sent to the stocks for saving my king's life, indeed."

"Saving your king's—I would have handled that pest much _better_ if you hadn't wasted my time becoming my useless human shield, you know!"

"If 'much _better_ ' means 'not well at all considering you had your backside to her', I completely agree. Oh, it hurts," Merlin moans. Arthur hisses in sympathy as he peels bloodstained gearwe off Merlin's wound and puts fresh stalks to it.

"Where'd you find that?"

"I'm a warrior, Merlin, I know my way around plants."

"Gaius tells me otherwise."

"And we both know your pristine record of honesty around me. Right."

Merlin tries to sit up and immediately gives up on the thought, falling back onto the ground. Arthur's arm comes up around his shoulders, warm and comforting. Merlin sighs.

"Where are we?"

"Still in the forest. Four days away from Camelot on horseback."

"Well, guess I'm going to die." Merlin closes his eyes in resignation even as the gash throbs and threatens to bleed all over the gearwe stalks and the bandage made of Merlin's ripped up sleeve.

Arthur sees Merlin's eyes go to his tattered shirt and hastily says, "Here lies Merlin's shirt, torn asunder by Arthur Pendragon because I wouldn't do that to my _own_ shirt, of course. Rest in literal pieces."

Merlin snickers, pain forgotten for a moment. Arthur's getting whiplash from the number of times relief washes over and leaches from him.

"Well, it doesn't matter, I'm not going to wear this shirt for longer."

"Yes, you are," Arthur says, grabbing Merlin's chin and forcing him to look Arthur in the eye. "You're _not_ dying. I won't let you."

"What a pathetic way to go," Merlin mumbles, trying to make Arthur laugh. "Who'd want to die saving _your_ life?"

Arthur looks stricken for a long second, Mordred's name on his tongue. Merlin looks like he wants to apologise for saying anything but he groans through gritted teeth and then faints.

—

"Mordred and all his sorcery couldn't touch you but one teensy prick from Morgana's knife brings you down," Arthur says right in time for Merlin to come around and frown at him.

"Hey, she's a powerful witch, you know, and very unethical."

"Indeed." Arthur smiles crookedly, sadly at Merlin and is elated to see Merlin snort.

"Arthur?"

"Merlin?"

Merlin is staring at him, far too serious for Arthur to even attempt to lie in response to whatever Merlin's going to throw at him.

"I'm really going to die this time, aren't I?" Merlin sounds very weak, and a little scared. He can barely keep his eyes open.

Arthur's shoulders slump in premature sorrow. They're too far from anything for Merlin to survive. Arthur is hopeless and lost and he was going to hide it from Merlin but Merlin might not be around much longer for Arthur to keep lying.

"Do you know of any spells, any magic that could help?" Arthur asks instead.

"I could try calling the dragon," Merlin whispers, but loses consciousness again before Arthur can say _yes, please_.

Arthur unwisely tries to get Merlin to his feet, because he can't just _sit and do nothing_ —but only ends up jostling the wound. Merlin shivers in pain.

"Arthur," he says in his sleep.

Arthur chokes. "I will find you," he promises through the burn in his eyes, "and I will never let you go again. Just wait. Wait for me."

Watch Merlin bleed out in the forest or watch Merlin bleed out on horseback?

Couldn't Merlin have just absorbed another of Arthur's illnesses again?

Merlin's body is cold and stiff by the time Arthur, eyes red-rimmed, crazed with grief, rides into Camelot, mourning bells beginning to toll.

* * *

VI. (I.)

Where's Merlin?

Arthur—Richard in this life—remembers. That's all he's good for. Remembering and reminiscing and missing and not living either of his lives properly as a result.

He sits in a posh office in London and dines at the fanciest eateries in the city, but Merlin's rat stew in his bedroom tasted better.

He has his father, who eerily resembles Uther physically and in nature, because the world is full of coincidences and Arthur's never been spared from the worst of fates. He has a sister like Morgana, a confidant like Gwen, and a lifelong friend like Gwaine, but he hasn't got Merlin.

At night, he dreams of Merlin's closed eyes, never to open again. He dreams of a dragon roaring at him, cruel in its contempt, aching for its dead lord.

Arthur tried—and failed—to use his wealth and influence to find anyone alive with the slightest resemblance to Merlin. He can't bear to consider that Merlin might not be alive at the same time as him, though it's certainly possible (someone who looked too much like Leon to be anyone else won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950 and died twenty years later, years before Arthur was born). Arthur resolutely doesn't think about the possibility that Merlin is lost to him in the only life in which it matters.

Where's Merlin?

"Sir?"

The assistant is new. Doesn't yet know Arthur never lets anyone into his office, but then again, she doesn't knock.

Arthur glances up from his computer, eyes dry.

"Your lunch with Miss Morgan," she says. "You'll be late if you don't leave now."

"Right, thanks."

He pulls on his blazer and grabs his wallet. Pity his sister doesn't remember her past life or Arthur would be much more animated at these lunches—or maybe Arthur needs to check himself into a hospital. Is he sane? Is he really?

The restaurant's walking distance from the company building, so Arthur turns down the car. If he walks, the double vision is less jarring—the streets of Camelot superimpose themselves over the roads, and the people wear shabby tunics over their business suits. Arthur sifts through both sets of memories as he waits to cross the road. It's almost comforting at this point.

The speeding car is something Arthur notices much before anyone else; so is the idiot walking out onto the road in front of it, face buried in his phone. The signal's still red, but Arthur can't let this man die, even on principle, so he lunges forward and snags the man's sleeve, dragging him back.

The signal promptly turns green, and the speeding car brakes right before the zebra crossing. Arthur feels a bit foolish now, with everyone's eyes on him as they give him a wide berth and move on.

The man jerks his arm out of Arthur's grip roughly. "What the hell," he says, turning around to glare at Arthur. "I could see the lights—"

"Merlin," Arthur says, dazed.

"No," the guy says, frowning. But it _is_ him. "Rhys. Do I know you?"

"I'm—Richard. No, Arthur. You've—drunk poison for me. And also taken a sword in the back."

"Have I?" Merlin looks unimpressed. Arthur searches for telltale flashes of recollection in his eyes, but finds none, so he waits to be deemed delusional and left behind.

"You'll have to tell me all about it," Merlin says, and Arthur can't speak for the shock. "You free for lunch?"

"Yeah, want to meet Morgana?"

Arthur is almost insulted that Merlin jolts into recognition at that. "God, no," Merlin says. "She tried to kill you. Why would I want to see her?"

"I don't know, the signal's turning red again," Arthur says. "We have to go."

They dash across the road with everyone slowing down to a stop around them, and if Arthur were to look back, he'd see Merlin grinning with golden eyes. He doesn't, but Merlin pulls Arthur to him and they kiss like lovers meeting after a millennium when they've crossed, so time flows again and all is right with Arthur's world.

"Thanks for misguidedly saving my life," Merlin mutters with a mischievous gleam in his eye. "Sire."

"I couldn't the last time, so I thought I'd give it another shot."

 _There's Merlin._ Finally.

* * *

 _for a prompt at KinksOfCamelot on LiveJournal! (yet again. I'm sorry, I'd be tired of me by now, too.) Please check the meme out, it deserves all the love and attention._


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